Politics

Bloomberg China vowed retaliation against a proposed $8 billion US sale of advanced fighter jets to Taiwan, threatening to impose sanctions on American firms participating in such a deal. “China will take all necessary measures to defend its own interests, including imposing sanctions on the US companies involved in the arm sales,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at ...

Bloomberg Venezuelan officials have been holding “secret meetings” with “high-ranking” US counterparts for months, president Nicolas Maduro said. “There have been contacts with high-ranking US government officials in the Trump administration and my government under my express authorisation to try resolving the conflict,” Maduro said in a speech broadcast on state television. Maduro said he was ready to speak directly ...

Bloomberg China confirmed it has detained a UK consulate worker from Hong Kong, underscoring security fears of people traveling between the Asian financial hub and the mainland as Beijing struggles to contain weeks of unrest. China’s foreign ministry said that the consulate worker, Simon Cheng, 28, was being held under in administrative detention in the adjacent city of Shenzhen on ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump cancelled a state visit to Denmark after his offer to buy Greenland was met first with bemusement, then flat refusal. Anger followed, and even Queen Margrethe II was drawn into the fray. Trump had been due to make his first visit to Denmark, a founding member of NATO and a US ally in the Iraq war, ...

Bloomberg The shroud of mystery surrounding Russia’s latest deadly nuclear accident will become increasingly difficult to maintain once the data starts to roll in. That’s the lesson of a team of scientists who showed last month — days before the explosion that killed five Russians — that “a sizeable, yet undeclared nuclear accident” had occurred two years earlier in Russia, ...

Bloomberg Italian President Sergio Mattarella begins intensive talks with political leaders to determine whether a new ruling coalition is viable, as the head of one of the country’s main parties signalled willingness to explore a new parliamentary majority. An alternative government is one of two main options emerging for the head of state after PM Giuseppe Conte resigned little more ...

Bloomberg US President Donald Trump spoke separately with the leaders of India and Pakistan in a bid to calm tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours over a territorial dispute. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has kept Kashmir under lockdown for more than two weeks after scrapping the region’s autonomy, a move condemned by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. Both nations claim ...

Bloomberg Russia said it will continue to observe its moratorium on the deployment of intermediate-range missiles after the US tested a cruise missile following a pullout from a Cold War-era treaty that barred testing and developing the weapons. Russia saw the US move coming and it won’t let itself be dragged into a costly arms race, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei ...

Bloomberg China has detained an employee of the UK consulate in Hong Kong during a trip to the mainland, according to his friend, in a case that threatens to further strain ties between Beijing and London. Simon Cheng, 28, was reported missing after failing to return from a meeting in the adjacent city of Shenzhen. The Hong Kong police said ...

Bloomberg Hong Kong protesters rejected leader Carrie Lam’s attempt to meet one of their key demands, raising questions about whether a compromise can be reached even as both sides seek to lower tensions. Lam pledged to immediately establish a platform for dialogue, investigate complaints against police and institute a wide-ranging fact-finding study into the demonstrations. While details remained scarce, she ...